How You are Now Doesn’t Have to Define You
I have addressed this topic before, but the way you are as a person doesn’t have to be how you are forever. When I was growing up, from age 10 until my mid twenties, I had a severe temper. I’m sure plenty of people have it much worse than I ever did, but that doesn’t minimize what I was dealing with, I had an issue nonetheless.
The root of my anger management issues typically stemmed from the basketball court. I put such high expectations on myself, that if I didn’t start a game playing very well, I felt like I had to show the other players that I was frustrated, and that I was a better player than that. It was a strange thought process. I’m not sure if it was a product of my natural people pleasing personality, feeling like I always had to do well, or a product of all of the hours I put into the sport, and having it not pay off with great success. I would miss a few shots in a row, and it was instant anger. I would be 15 years old and miss a shot that didn’t matter to the outcome of the game, and I would yell some obscenity, punch a wall, kick a basketball across the gym, yell at another player, you name it.
My temper came to a point where I quit basketball in my senior year of high school. Which, looking back was one of the most important decisions of my life. It was the first time I took a hard look at something that wasn’t bringing me joy in my life, and removed it.
Aside from basketball, my temper would stem into other aspects of life as well. Although I had removed the sport and the frustration it caused was gone, I still found myself getting frustrated elsewhere. I was the son that had to patch walls in the house every once in a while, and the son that broke his phone from throwing it across the room. Not until after high school did I develop a system to avoid my temper flaring up which I talk about here. I realized that as I was playing intramural or pick-up basketball, I hadn’t made much progress, and the sport still brought me immense frustration.
If you read about the system I developed to tackle my frustration and acknowledge it was happening, you’ll see what it took to get to where I am today. But without weightlifting and finding another avenue to express myself physically, I don’t think I would’ve made it to this point. People I meet today say they can’t picture me having a temper at all, and I am almost annoyingly positive and friendly. I try my best to say hi to anyone I have seen more than once, and I do my best to look at everything with positivity.
In my teens and early twenties, I thought since I was negative and had a temper, that’s just how I was, and that I would be stuck that way forever, like it was some kind of disease. A temper is something that should be looked at like we look at drugs and alcohol, or any other negative influence we have in our lives. It’s something that can and should be treated. Treated on your own, with close friends and family, or professionally with therapy. For me, it was journaling and developing my system. I would miss a shot, and have the initials DGM on my wrist for “Don’t Get Mad.” That was step one of finding a better way to deal with anger. I went to therapy once in high school and the doctor told me to take deep breaths, but I was too stubborn to listen to anyone at that point, like how the hell is this lady going to tell me taking deep breaths is going to work.
I have come a long way since my teenage years, I never have a temper anymore, and I keep a light hearted attitude most of the time. I have been called passive at jobs before, but being passive is my way of avoiding any frustration before it has the chance to happen. So if you are dealing with any sort of issues or fears, just know that they can be worked on, and that doesn’t have to be how you are forever. I have seen people work on plenty of issues and come out on top in the end, but a lot of people don’t share their stories so we don’t know what they did to get out of it. But if you are dealing with anything that causes you trouble, step one is to address it, and create a plan to move forward and attack it. It will take a long time, it took years for me, and I still feel my temper creeping in when I play pick-up basketball or things aren’t going my way. However, when I feel my anger bubbling up, I remember how far I’ve come and remind myself that I’m a different person now, and it helps keep me calm and relaxed.
If you deal with anything internally that you feel like needs improvement, I encourage you to try to identify that issue, and move forward aggressively. A wake-up call for me was when my brother told me that he didn’t enjoy playing basketball with me anymore. If what you struggle with is holding you back in life, whether it be relationships or a job, move forward and get control of it. If you don’t, you’ll be 50 and still dealing with the same thing. I see plenty of older people that were once me and never got a hold of their anger. Then I reflect on how happy I am for progressing to this point. Self-improvement is a phrase that is often parodied, but the best and most real form of it is life-changing. Work on yourself day in and day out to the point where you’re a new person. After you do that, reassess in a few years and keep moving forward doing the same thing. I always say that I met my fiancè at the perfect time. If she met me in my early twenties, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with me. However, she met the improved version of me, that was much easier to fall in love with. So don’t let your lack of self-improvement hold you back from having what you deserve in life.
